CHAPTER ONE

 

Linda Kazinski was wrapping up her waitressing shift. The last few patrons had stumbled out into the hot, humid, New Orleans night. She loaded the final batch of beer and shot glasses into the industrial-sized washer in the kitchen and took off her apron. It reeked of beer, smoke, and the sweat of hard work. She winced as she noticed the swellings on her butt from being pinched all night by rowdy men and some women.

Buster ("Bull") Bronson, the owner and chief bartender of the Sorry Ass Café and Blues Bar, wiped down the bar for the twentieth time that night. He wasn't called "Bull" for nothing. He was a huge, bulging man-an ex-Marine sergeant who used a VA loan to finance his place. He could put the fear of God into unruly customers and wouldn't hesitate to use his trusty bat, The Persuader, always at his side. But Bull had a soft spot somewhere underneath his hard exterior. He looked at Linda sympathetically. He knew she'd had a tough go of it. Her husband had left her, and she worked hard to support her three kids, juggling another job on top of the one at the bar. She was the best damn waitress he ever had, he mused. She had a near photographic memory for customer orders and always had a kind smile or word for everyone, including the most obnoxious boozers. But the clientele at the Sorry Ass weren't exactly big tippers. On more profitable nights, he slipped a little more beer-soaked cash into her pay envelope-all under the table, of course.

He usually stood at the door, watching her make her way down the side street to Main, half a block away. It was a rough neighborhood, after all, and with these recent murders in the area, Bull kept an especially close eye on her after closing time. But tonight, he was distracted by complaints from his blues guitarist over his gig fees. The musicians were always bitching about something. But this guy was good, Bull knew. So, as Linda walked out the door, he went over to hear him out.

Linda was on edge as soon as she stepped out of the café. James Street was deeply shadowed in the faint moonlight. The sole streetlight buzzed and flickered dimly, as it had for the past two months. "One damn street light and the city can't fix it," she muttered to herself.

Her anxiety grew when she noticed Bull wasn't at his usual post in the doorway of the café. The garish red and blue blinking lights of the café faded in the murk as she walked on.

She swallowed as she looked down the narrow side street. The shops were long closed, those that could afford it shuttered with burglar bars. The doorways and alley openings were completely shadowed, and she peered apprehensively into each one as she passed. The lights of Main Street seemed awfully distant.

Thoughts of the murders, not far from there in the French Quarter, crossed her mind. Lone women had walked in dark side streets just like this. Their families would never see them alive again. She tensed as she heard a doorknob click in the dark to her left. She hurried on, checking several times for anyone following her.

About halfway down the street, she heard the roll of a tin can on the pavement somewhere near her. Her heart racing, she looked back but saw nothing in the street. She told herself she was overreacting and lit a cigarette. She was startled as the flame of her lighter illuminated a figure sitting in a doorway a few feet away, its head resting face down on its knees. The head suddenly rose. "Linda, how 'bout a quarter? I'm donatin' to the AA."

She breathed out a sigh of relief. It was only Joe, one of the alcoholic regulars on James Street. She pulled a couple of quarters from her pocket and pressed them to his hand. "That's for originality, Joe."

"It's for a good cause, ya know."

"Yeah, yeah," she said as she resumed walking. "Watch yourself, Joe," she called back. "I hear the backstreets aren't too safe these nights." Good advice for herself, too, she thought. What the hell was she doing out here alone, anyway? She should have had Bull escort her on a dark night like this.

She took several puffs on her cigarette, distracting herself with idle thoughts. Funny how nicotine seemed to lose its jolt after the first two or three drags. No matter. She was going to kick the habit anyway. Better get a move on. That pimply-faced babysitter of hers might get it in her head to charge overtime.

She was on the verge of calming down when she heard a subtle, fluttering sound behind her, steady at first, then speeding up. "Joe? Is that you? No practical jokes, now.... Come on, Joe. It's not funny anymore." She listened for a few moments, holding her breath. There was no reply.

She quickened her pace, at the same time reaching into her purse for her pepper spray canister. The fluttering sound grew louder. Her heart pounded in her ears. "Jesus," she whispered and turned abruptly to face the strange sounds. She thrust out the canister. "I don't know who the hell you are, but back off. I'm armed." She fired three squirts in the direction of the sounds, but there were no signs that the noxious streams had hit their mark.

Panicked, she started to run all out toward Main. She tripped over a raised manhole cover and fell heavily to the ground, her spray can rolling away from her. Whatever it was behind her in the dark was almost upon her.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

It was a rainy Saturday morning on the river. Jeremy Hale relaxed in his captain's chair on the bridge of his boat docked at Bay Bayou Marina. A flotilla of drenched powerboats, small yachts, and sailing crafts bobbed forlornly at their moorings nearby.

A thick fog enshrouded the river. The passing freighters looked like hulking ghost ships pushing their way through the gloom to and from the port of New Orleans.

Jeremy had christened his boat Mississippi Dream. The boat symbolized his love for the river. In fact, he loved it more than most of the women who'd come into his life. He referred to the river as "she," for it was his true woman friend-certainly the one he knew best and trusted most.

But his boat was more than a symbol. Beginning as a weekend getaway, it eventually became home, his outpost on the edge of the city. His boat-home gave him refuge from the hard, tedious, and sometimes dangerous business of being a private investigator in New Orleans for the past fifteen years. It was practically an antique, built back in the 1920s. Jeremy had long ago learned to ignore the curious, amused looks from the power boaters. Only he could appreciate the history in his boat's thick hardwood timbers, lovingly coated with successive layers of bright marine paint over the years. But he was a kind of ship's surgeon as well, ever alert to the occasional spot of rot in its otherwise sturdy hull, which he would diligently dig out and patch.

The bridge featured an old wooden captain's wheel, brass compass, and silver-plated ship's chronometer. A cluster of levers jutted out, apparently haphazardly, from the control panel. Jeremy had a small cabin with a single bunk adjacent to a sitting area that doubled as a dining room. This was sparsely but tastefully furnished with pieces of antique furniture rescued from a late 1800s sailing ship, including an oak rolltop desk. A small, well-worn pool table also adorned the room. The sitting area abutted onto a tiny galley with an old gas stove.

His choice of an old boat was no accident. He had always loved things historical, sometimes feeling alienated from the high-tech world of 2017; at one time, he had even considered a career teaching high-school history. He had occasionally wondered about his attraction to the past. Perhaps, he mused, it was because the past had already happened; it was set in stone, unchanging. God knows, given what had happened with his mother and sister, he needed predictability in his life.

The river also gave him constancy. After all, the Mississippi had generally held its course to the gulf for eons. A plaque on Jeremy's cabin wall displayed his favorite aphorism: The great river will always take you to the sea.

But most importantly, the river was a place of reflection. A few times a week, Jeremy would bring the boat out for a run. He would travel upstream for hours, giving the throbbing old diesel a workout. He would then reverse course and cut the engine, allowing the boat to drift south in the current; occasionally, he'd make minor course adjustments with the ship's wheel. It was while he drifted that he would have his deepest thoughts, and at times, insights into his life. Once in a while, he'd remember Mark Twain's character Huckleberry Finn. He could not help but notice the parallels between Huck and himself. Huck, too, drifted down the Mississippi-only on a ramshackle raft-seeking freedom and discovering some deep and unexpected truths during his journey. Jeremy sometimes laughed at the comparison. Imagine thinking of himself as a modern-day Huck Finn!

But on this foggy morning, the boat would have to remain docked in the marina. Jeremy had visited Dad's Variety Store, next to the marina's repair shop and hardware, to buy Saturday's copy of the New Orleans Sentinel. The headline and story were disturbing: Woman Found Brutally Murdered and Raped on James Street. Thirty-three-year-old waitress and mother of three Linda Kazinski had been on her way home after closing time, Friday night, at the café where she worked for the past five years....

Jeremy's brow furrowed as he read the rest of the article. He was well aware of the half-dozen similar murders in the old districts and the three levels of police desperately looking for a sadistic sexual killer. He knew that the investigation had gone nowhere so far and that the public's fears were growing fast.

Jeremy sighed and put down his paper. In his university criminology classes, he had studied serial murderers. He knew all about their profiles and psychodynamics. But he felt he'd never understood, in any depth, their incredible inhumanity. Somehow, the theories just didn't seem to measure up to the magnitude of their crimes. At times, he wondered if there was something much more fundamental, like pure evil, at the root of it all.

Jeremy spent the rest of Saturday doing some reading. He liked some of the older detective story writers, especially Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. He especially liked that, so far, all the criminals were caught as a result of brilliant deduction. It was a welcome relief from the real world of investigation.

Just as Poirot was about to checkmate his suspect, he heard footsteps on the wooden dock and then some whistling. It sounded like his old buddy, Tony Vasquez, coming to pay a visit.

"Ahoy, Captain! Permission to come aboard."

It was Tony taking a friendly shot across his bow. Jeremy played along. "Permission granted, matey."

The two laughed as Tony joined him in the sitting room, a six-pack of beer under his arm. Jeremy eyed the beer. "Got your boarding fees, I see."

"Here's your booty," Tony said, handing over the beer.

The two cracked open a couple. Tony spied the Agatha Christie book opened on the old desk. "I see you're spending another exciting weekend on the river," he observed. "No hot dates tonight?" He knew very well that Jeremy's dates were few and far between, and never on his boat. Jeremy's gangplank was the boundary between himself and all romantically inclined women. But Tony liked to skewer him on the matter, hoping to goad him into getting out once in a while, and if miracles existed, to date a female or two.

"Bugger," chided Jeremy.

"Well, somehow I don't think your dating prospects are too good in Bay Bayou Marina."

"Been docked all week," Jeremy complained, changing the subject. "The engine's going to rust if I don't give her a run soon."

Tony nodded. He knew Jeremy too well to miss his friend's favorite avoidance tactic whenever the topic of dating came up. The two had been close friends since they were teens and had gone to St. Vincent's High School together in New Orleans. After that, they parted ways for a while. Tony had gone on to the police academy and joined the New Orleans Police Department as a beat cop; Jeremy had won a scholarship and enrolled in Harvard University's criminology program. Tony was a family man now, with two kids and one more on the way, but he and Jeremy still managed to get together on the occasional weekend.

Tony was aware that Jeremy was only five years old when his mother left the family. Jeremy had always presented an I-don't-give-a-damn attitude about what she did, but Tony knew better. It was not that he absolved Jeremy in the matter. His mother had tried to reconnect with him when he was a teen, but Jeremy ignored her messages. Now, he was a thirty-eight-year-old man with abandonment issues he had never faced. Tony was thankful he'd never had that problem. His parents were about to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary together, along with their huge extended families.

Tony let the topic of dating pass by. He'd done his duty for the day on the matter. "Have you heard about the murder last night?"

"The waitress? Yeah. It was all over the Sentinel. Same M.O.?"

Tony sighed. "That's what Jack Claye, the lead, told me. The poor woman was brutalized: raped, strangled, and had her ovaries removed, if you can believe it. God knows in what order. There are some signs of torture, too. We're obviously dealing with a viciously sadistic SOB."

Jeremy slowly shook his head. "I heard everything but the ovaries and the torture. I gather you boys held that information back. God, when will it end?"

"When we catch the psychopath," Tony said, his jaw visibly tightening. "I'm not up on everything, but I'm plugged in to the grapevine enough to know that the investigation is going nowhere. No suspects. No decent leads. I hear there's some weird stuff at the murder scenes, too, that doesn't make sense."

Jeremy could almost feel Tony's frustration. Tony was not only his closest friend but also a comrade in arms. He had moved up to detective in the NOPD and often provided valuable police information for Jeremy's private investigations. Both Tony and the NOPD valued Jeremy's talents for solving difficult criminal cases that would otherwise languish in police files. Sometimes, Tony had permission to team up with Jeremy, but more often, budget restraints meant going the covert route and passing information on the sly. The chief knew about the practice and turned a blind eye to it. He was more interested in improving his force's arrest record and getting commendations from the mayor.

Tony had never completely understood Jeremy's claims that the river played some kind of role in his investigations. Jeremy had used a quote one day from Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, attempting to explain to Tony his relationship with the river: "The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book ... which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it had uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and cast aside, for it had a new story to tell every day."

Tony had been utterly bewildered. "Would someone please translate that?" he protested.

"Honestly, buddy," Jeremy had gently chided. "I think you slept through Literature 301 at St. Vincent's. It's a metaphor, Tony. Twain has insights while travelling the river." Tony looked even more mystified.

Tony took a more pragmatic view of his friend's investigative successes. He knew that Jeremy's deductive abilities were second to none. He also knew that Jeremy had good sources in the New Orleans underworld, a carefully groomed list of informants in the know about other shady types operating just below the police radar. Jeremy's reach extended even to several jailhouse snitches.

"How's the FBI doing on the case?" Jeremy asked.

"Well, their violent crimes unit has been analyzing the case, and there's no end to it. We have criminal profiling information from them on the murderer coming out of our ears. Don't get me wrong-a lot of it's really good stuff. Like in many serial murders, the bodies have been posed, and this has helped the FBI with their psychological analysis of the murderer. But all of this has not helped us to narrow down any suspects yet. I get the feeling that the break will come from somewhere else, and when we've got him, then we'll say, 'Oh, yeah, he fits the profile.'" Tony shrugged in exasperation.

"The pressure for an arrest must be high. Word on the streets is that people in the old districts are definitely scared, and I imagine the mayor must be getting an earful."

"Yeah. Things may get a lot worse, too. I've heard there's been an unusual number of women disappearing in bayou country. Some may turn up dead, or at least what's left of them after the alligators have their way. If it's the same M.O., then God help us all."

"I'm half glad I'm not in on it."

Tony smiled grimly. "Well, if things go downhill any more, you'll be asked to join the investigating team for sure."

Jeremy let his breath out slowly. "That should make life interesting."

"For the department, too." Tony grinned. "Just don't tell them about the river."

Jeremy laughed. "Good shot, Tony. You deserve another beer."

"I've had my limit. But I'll tell you what I deserve. Why don't you come over for supper sometime? The kids and I have some great computer games you could learn. There are better things to do weekends besides reading dusty old crime books. The modern age lies before you, buddy."

Jeremy smiled. "I'll take it under advisement, Tony."

The two turned their attention to the pool table. That usually started a friendly argument about what game to play, but tonight Tony generously settled for a contest of snooker.